Chocolate-chip cookie
|
A plate of chocolate-chip cookies |
A
chocolate-chip cookie is a type of
cookie originating in the
United States. As its name implies, it is characterized by the inclusion of
chocolate chips, but beyond that defining characteristic, there is a great deal of variation within this kind of cookie.
The
chocolate-chip cookie, also known as the
Toll House Cookie, was accidentally developed by
Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the
Toll House Inn near
Whitman,
Massachusetts, in
1937. Wakefield was making chocolate
cookies but ran out of regular
baker's chocolate and substituted broken pieces of
semi-sweet chocolate, assuming it would melt and mix into the batter. It did not, and the cookie with chips of chocolate was born. (The
restaurant, housed in a former
toll house built in
1709, burned down in
1984.)
Today, half the cookies baked in American homes are chocolate-chip, with an estimated seven billion consumed annually.
Chocolate chip cookies are made with sugar, flour, eggs, semi-sweet baker's chocolate and butter. Sometimes nuts (such as chopped walnuts) are added to the batter. While the Toll House recipe is considered the standard, the ingredients can be adjusted to give the cookies slightly different properties.
In addition to being American pop-culture icons in and of themselves, chocolate-chip cookies are often referenced in the media:
*Chocolate-chip cookies are the favored cookies of
Sesame Street's
Cookie Monster.
*
Doubletree Hotels, Suites, Resorts and Clubs present a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie to each guest at check-in. The hotel chain has done so since the 1980s as a way of distinguishing itself from its competitors.
*
Chips Ahoy! (
Nabisco)
*
Chips Deluxe (
Kellogg's)
*
Famous Amos*
Mrs. Fields*
Pepperidge Farm*
Toll House (
Nestlé)
*
*
Nestle Toll House Cookie recipe*
Ravenous Recipes: Chocolate Chip Cookies
